Enemy Lover (6 page)

He looked back at Jax through the two-way and stopped breathing. She stared at him as if nothing but air separated them. Her green eyes sparkled dangerously. But it wasn’t her glacial glare that had him holding his breath, it was the way her fingertips probed the area behind her right ear. He knew the moment she figured
it out. He cringed when she took the fork and bent back one of the tines on the edge of the table.

“Holy shit,” Cruz whispered.

She dug the tine into her scalp and probed with her left hand. Godfather watched her face. Her eyes glittered in fury, not once wavering from the two-way mirror. Bloodied fingers lowered from her head. She raised them. There in her fingertips was the flat GPS chip, no larger in circumference than half the size of a small eraser head. She dropped it onto her plate, where it made a slight
ting
sound. Never once did she break her stare.

Unhurriedly, she stood and made her way around the small table. As she did, the sash on her robe loosened. She didn’t bother to tighten it. She stopped when she stood directly in front of them. An excited twitter skipped along his spine. Not sexual excitement but the excitement of knowing he had hit the jackpot. All three men stood silent, watched and waited.

She leaned toward the mirror and breathed heavily onto it, fogging it up. With a bloody finger, she wrote A-S-S-H-O-L-E-S in the fog, then flipped them the bird.

Stone laughed.

Godfather nodded, his lips quirking as relief poured through him. “I think, boys, she’s going to do just fine.” He knew as he said the words that his initial instincts had been spot-on. She would become a prime operative.

July 7, 8:32 a.m.
Washington, D.C.

It was already eighty-two degrees with the promise of hitting the century mark by noon. The dog days of summer held the nation’s capital in a choke hold. But despite the heat and the oppressive humidity, tourists swarmed the city. Like the flocks of birds spanning the rich, velvety green carpet of the mall, they took advantage of the cooler temperatures of the morning before flocking to the cooler interiors of the numerous monuments and museums.

Senator William Rowland did not pause to behold the wonder of nature or observe the multitude of tourists that swarmed around him. Instead, he drew a deep, nervous breath and scanned the crowds who mulled around the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He looked up at the solemn stare of Lincoln, then past the marble statue in search of the man he’d seen only a handful of times over the last two years. Always clandestinely. Always at night. Always beneath the Gettysburg Address. The symbolism of their meeting spot was not lost on Rowland.

Today, Rowland had insisted on a daylight meeting.

His lips drew into a tight line as he glanced at his watch. The man was late. But it didn’t matter. Today
would be their last meeting. Rowland was not a coward by any stretch of the imagination. There was no room for a queasy stomach in politics, but there was something about the man he was meeting that unnerved him on a very primal level. Even when he’d been desperate and, like an angel of mercy, the man had materialized, his instincts had told him to turn and run, that nothing but trouble would come from even the slightest association. But he hadn’t run. Lives had been at stake, all because the American government had not done what had needed to be done. The man, however, had delivered, and the tentative alliance they had formed had blossomed into a full-fledged codependency. Unfortunately, while Rowland had known that codependent relationships always benefited one party over the other, he’d only just realized that he was the person at the losing end of the equation.

Feeling like a target standing out in the open, Rowland walked through the groups of awe-inspired tourists, the strolling couples holding hands, and the man reading a newspaper on a park bench.

Startled by the sudden pressure of a firm grip on his right shoulder, Rowland flinched and spun around.

“Senator Rowland, good morning,” the man the senator knew as Colonel Lazarus said from behind him.

“Jesus, I hate when you do that!” A man always in complete control, the senator did not like surprises. Yet all this man did was surprise him. Rowland turned, facing Lazarus. He was dressed completely in black, not one inch of his pale skin showing except the lower part of his face. The guy was just plain odd. Reluctantly, Rowland shook the colonel’s gloved hand even as he struggled
to meet what he knew were pale, frosty eyes shadowed by a wide-brimmed black felt hat and thick sunglasses. The colonel’s lips pulled back from very long teeth. At that moment, the senator knew how it felt to look down a shark’s throat. The fine hairs on his body rose, and his skin chilled beneath his ample clothing. The colonel’s grip increased. The senator scowled and yanked his hand away.

“Just staying on top of my game, Senator.”

The senator’s scowl deepened. Nervously, feeling like he was in the colonel’s crosshairs, he glanced around, half expecting to see the glint of a scope. “This isn’t a game,” Rowland bit off, still unable to shake the feeling he was a target.

The colonel smiled wider and slid down the large pair of black sunglasses as he too scanned the peripheral area. Unlike Rowland’s rigid stance, the colonel’s body was relaxed in a defiant, I-dare-you-to-try-something kind of way. Apprehension settled with a thud in Rowland’s gut.

“C’ mon now, Bill, you’ re a sitting U.S. senator. No one would dare take out a U.S. senator.” A short pause emphasized the colonel’s next words. “Would they?”

Rowland narrowed his eyes, not missing the threat. It was a habit the colonel had fallen into, and one he was going to cut short, here and now. “
You
talk about audacity?”

The colonel raised a black umbrella he had been holding in his left hand and pressed a button. With a short, sharp snap, it popped open, casting a dark shadow over both men. Rowland jumped back at the abrupt sound.
The colonel smiled. “I have a slight sensitivity to the sun.” He inclined his head forward. “Shall we walk, Senator?” he asked, inclining his head away from the thickening crowds. “I feel too much like a target standing still out here in the open.”

“Talk about a target? You’ ve painted one on both our backs.” They walked toward the Vietnam Memorial. “This latest business in Venezuela? Too high-profile. Too damn high-profile.”

“The job was completed,” the colonel said.

“Damn it, man!” Rowland shouted, then lowered his voice when several passersby gawked. He grasped the colonel’s beefy arm and steered him over to the far edge of the promenade. “The lunatic running that country already despises us as it is. And what do you do? Leave one of his oil ministers cut from balls to gullet—and on a public road, no less!”

The colonel abruptly stopped and jerked his arm from Rowland’s grasp. Low and level he said, “He
needed
to be found. It
needed
to be public. It made the correct statement! And, might I remind you, we also left enough dope and evidence of dummied bank accounts to suggest cartel involvement.”

Rowland moved to the edge of the grass and softly said, “It was in the papers for Christ’s sake. If it ever leaked out that we, that
I,
was involved—”

The colonel quickly cut him off. “That’s never going to happen because
I’ ll
never let it happen.” The colonel laid a hand on his shoulder. “Senator, you contracted The Solution to do the things our government can’t or won’t do.” The colonel leaned in until they were almost nose-to-nose. “
Why
? Because if it comes down to it,
we’ ll take the fall instead of you. And believe me, that won’t happen.”

“And Turkey? Explain Turkey to me.”

The colonel stepped back, dropped his hand and shrugged. “What’s to explain? The Iranian consulate was harboring a known terrorist. That SOB Say-Ed and that extremist he was protecting had to go. Making it look like a homo love-murder-suicide was genius and not my idea, I might add, but that of a very good operative. The same one who handled Venezuela, in fact.” The colonel softened his tone and said, “Look, Senator, we’ re on the same side here, and with all due respect, everything is fine. Could not be better, in fact. We’ re cleaning up a lot of the bottom-feeders out there.” He looked pointedly at the senator. “That which needs handling is getting handled, and no one,
no one
is going to be the wiser.”

He’s patronizing me,
Rowland thought. But he’d called this meeting for one reason and one reason only, and he’d be damned if he’d allow the colonel to bully him out of what he knew he had to do. Without his intelligence and his funding, the colonel was soon going to find himself and The Solution out of work. “I’m shutting it down, Colonel. It’s over.”

The colonel yanked off his glasses. His pale eyes narrowed, and he moved in closer. Rowland actually felt the outline of the man’s .45 against his chest, and his pulse began to hammer even before the colonel whispered, “You’ ll shut down nothing. Do you understand?”

Fear curled in Rowland’s belly, and he felt like a coward for it. He pushed through it. This was his mess to clean up, and as much as he would have liked to pass
this along to his chief of staff, Rowland stood his ground. “Stand down, Colonel. This is not your decision.”

“Bullshit!
This
country needs The Solution. It needs patriots like you and me, and the men who serve me. Men willing to not ask questions. Men of blind faith and dedication to a greater cause, a higher purpose. 
For the greater good.
Men who make presidents and, yes, even senators greater men than they alone can be.”

Rowland did not waver in his purpose. What had begun with noble intentions had turned into an enormous disaster, with this half-crazed colonel acting like God Almighty. “My mind is made up. I will no longer pass along classified information to The Solution. I’m withdrawing the earmark that would continue to fund your preferred government contractor status. It’s finished, Colonel. I suggest you take stock of your employees and decide what, if anything, may need to be done with them. Whatever you decide in that regard, I don’t wish to be a party to it.” Rowland stepped past the colonel, wanting to get away from him. Afraid if he did not the colonel would take his wrath out on him personally.

Colonel Lazarus grabbed his arm and spun Rowland, all six foot two and two hundred forty pounds of him, around.

“My employees?” the colonel demanded incredulously. “Decide what might need to be done with them? They’ re heroes! Patriots! And you speak as if I’m just supposed to give them a company watch and say thanks for the memories.”

“Remember your position, Colonel,” the senator warned. “For that matter, remember mine. It’s
over
!”

The colonel stepped back, but the senator knew he was regrouping to attack from another angle. “No, sir,
you
remember
my
position, and my position only, because right now that’s the only one you need to concern yourself with.” The colonel leaned in close and personal, now eyeball to eyeball. “Remember what I’m capable of, and that I will do anything to protect this country from her enemies,
especially
those from within.”

“Your threats are falling on deaf ears, Colonel. We’ re through here.” Rowland made to move past him, but the colonel grabbed his arm and jerked him back.

“How dare you threaten the security The Solution provides this country?”

Rowland dug in and harshly said, “This is exactly what I’m talking about. I’ ve seen it coming, like a goddamn train wreck! You’ ve gotten too damn big for your own britches. It’s a checks-and-balances game, and you have tipped the scale one too many times into the mud. There is no debating here. I’m pulling the plug.”

“No, Senator, you are not.” The colonel slid his hand inside his sleek black jacket. Rowland nodded ever so slightly. Within seconds, two large sunglassed gorillas flanked The Solution’s CEO. Sharp teeth glittered in the sunlight, and the colonel slowly pulled his hand from his jacket. His pale eyes lasered into Rowland. He swallowed hard.

“So the trust has been broken, Senator.” Lazarus nodded, acknowledging the security detail. “And now, it will be what it will be.”

He turned slowly and disappeared into the onslaught
of sun-starved tourists. “Sir?” Rowland’s bodyguard asked, inclining his head toward the colonel.

Rowland slowly shook his head. “Leave it be.” And knew as he said the words that one did not leave a man like Colonel Lazarus be and stay clean. But he had no choice. This was an election year, and he could not have his bodyguard take out the man in front of the Lincoln Memorial, no matter how much he deserved it.